The NEP (New Economic Policy) is by all definitions the most inefficient and wasteful economic policy that can be devised by any government. It is also the most divisive and destructive to Malaysian society - unjust to those affected by it and self-defeating to those it is intended to help, the largely poor rural Malays.

Designed to disable the mechanism of meritocracy in the country's everyday life, it not only divides the citizens through blatant favouritism, it has also led the government to nonsensical mindless acts. On the eve of the country's 50th day of independence, the leaders will pretend that all is well and will trumpet to the world how its multi-ethnic races live peacefully together with one another.

Predictably, it will exhort the citizens to fly more flags during Merdeka to instill patriotism. It will force the young into a useless National Service programme to create the Bangsa Malaysia spirit that the NEP so effectively destroyed in the first place.

The Education Ministry will continue cheating in education with degree mills slogging for a favoured lot but which will ultimately backfire in that knowledge must be earned and cannot be bought. A free job market will know who is who, resulting in a perversely unintended discriminatory bias against deserving Malays.

With cheap talk, the government will attempt to lure those highly mobile, high-impact Malaysians driven away by the NEP to return home to help the country while continuing to relegate its minority groups to second-class citizens. It will exhort non-bumis to join government service while letting favouritism run wild in the civil service and government-linked companies where non-bumis need not apply for top jobs.

Take a look at the highly-competitive car market. Proton, a government-owned company, was shielded from open competition for decades. Despite the crutches thrown at it, it is more than likely to go bankrupt because it never had to compete and by extension never learned to. Let this Proton bomb be an enlightening lesson.

There are other too - false and foolish national pride, exclusion of minorities in government decision-making, the unfettered tyranny of Umno in championing racial discrimination and junking the most precious asset left by the British, the English language. The list goes on and on.

Couple these with a gutter judiciary that sent an ex-deputy prime minister to jail on trumped up charges, rampant public administration and police corruption made worse by free loading Umnoputras (the biggest beneficiaries of the NEP for not sweating much), one would not wonder how all this has put the country back behind its southern neighbour by at least 40 years, even if the country achieves Vision 2020 by then.

More than 30 years of untold GDP billions have been lost due to a wasteful economic policy where the deserving and the undeserving are rewarded the opposite way.

The Gini Coefficient index which measures a country's wealth distribution puts Malaysia at the bottom of Asian ranking. By and large, the rural Malay community is still mired in poverty after so much lost opportunities. Why is this so?

The stated vision of the country for a just and corruption free Malaysian society and the particular interests of the Umnoputras who represent it, are just not aligned. In other words, the current shambles are simply too profitable to scrap.

If Malaysia wants to seek a future as a prosperous and pluralistic trading nation in the global mainstream, this country is well-advised to discontinue a bad economic policy in its current form after having created a class of crony capitalists dependent on government largesse and a Malay population that sees special privileges as a birthright. This supremacy complex is often expressed in terms of religious and economic intolerance.

The government must discard a political framework that make good bumiputeras do bad things, like stopping the brown shirts of Umno Youth and the state religious department from threatening, harassing and trampling on the rights of its hapless non-Muslim citizens. Much like the Arab-Israeli conflict which poisons world politics, the NEP is at the heart of Malaysia's malaise, impeding its own development towards a mature, civilised democracy.

A more enlightening economic policy has to be based on the needs for the economically disadvantaged and must be free from racial bias. Imagine this scenario - the country's multi-ethnic races full of aspiration for a New Malaysia, all fired up to create a booming vibrant economy free from the shackles of the bumiputera burden. A true renaissance with a morning spirit bursting with optimism with all races working together.

With nowhere else to go, non-bumis will be so grateful just to be treated equally and will proudly embrace the land of their birth Malaysia as their one and only home. Bangsa Malaysia will simply fall in place. The economic pie will expand with all boats lifted by a rising tide.

The country's terrifying fear of Chinese economic dominance will be proven wrong, mitigated by enacting fair and legal instruments to keep it in check and in balance. All those elusive issues that matter like nation-building, press freedom, wealth distribution, justice, transparency, governance, accountability, Bangsa Malaysia and Vision 2020 will stand a better chance to be put right.

The NEP need not be discarded but just tweaked to banish the race factor once and for all - so simple, yet so very elusive but ultimately achievable given honest and daring political will. And finally, in a truly progressive, civilised, multi-ethnic nation coming of age, Malaysians will begin to see their children of all races mixing and playing together once again like in years gone by. Its leaders can then be justifiably proud too and deservedly so for it is them who would have made it happen.

May Allah and God bless this unique country on the auspicious event of its 50th year of independence. Happy Birthday Malaysia! Let meritocracy rule.